Franco-era man unseated as regional president
Manuel Fraga, the last political survivor of General Francisco Franco’s regime, has lost power in Spain’s Galicia region after an election decided by overseas voters.
The famously outspoken Fraga, 82, had ruled since 1990 and was seeking a fifth straight term as regional president. But Socialists and nationalists won a majority in the Galician legislature and are expected to form a coalition.
The election for the 75-seat legislature was held on June 19, but ended too close to call and came down to a count of ballots cast by Galicians living abroad, mainly in Latin America. One seat in Pontevedra province remained at stake. It ended up going to the Socialists.
Fraga’s Popular Party ultimately won 37 seats, one short of a majority. The Galician branch of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero’s Socialist party took 25 and the Galician National Bloc won 13. They are expected to form a coalition.
Fraga said he still wanted to stay in politics and act as opposition leader.
Socialist leader Emilio Perez Tourino, who is expected to be sworn in as Galicia’s next president, said voters had given him “a mandate for change and renewal”.
The results dealt yet another setback to the Popular Party, which was seeking a comeback after being voted out of power nationally in general elections in March 2004, losing Spain’s leg of elections to the European Parliament last year and performing poorly in Basque regional elections in April.
Fraga served as Franco’s information minister, and after Spain’s transition to democracy following the death of the dictator in 1975 formed the party that is now called the Popular Party.
He and Franco were both natives of Galicia, a traditionally conservative region.
During the election campaign Fraga drew criticism for his comments on the accuracy of opinion polls.
“If you ask a woman how many men she sleeps with, she does not usually give an absolutely accurate answer,” Fraga said in an interview with the news agency Efe.
During the last legislature his government was also criticised for its allegedly unorganised handling of a huge oil spill off Galicia’s rocky, seafood-rich coast in November 2002.
